The Conversion Rate Optimization 2018 Marketer’s Playbook

If you take about 5 MINUTES today to read everything in this blog line by line until the end, you’ll have the ability to understand EVERYTHING you need to know about Conversion Rates and what they mean for you as a digital marketer in 2018.

You see…

At ConversionFly we think day & night about sales funnels, ads, conversions…

More importantly, you as a digital marketer, consultant, or online coach do this ALL. DAY. LONG.

So… we all know the basics of conversion rates and math in the marketing game, about the micro-conversion rate for product pages, macro conversions for product pages, and website conversion rates; which are all important metrics.

But at the end of the day, we all just care about ONE THING when building a profitable business…

The challenge today in the digital marketing world is that you’re focusing on too many things at the same time:

Funnels

Live Webinars, Evergreen Webinars, VSL

Events and upsells plans

Social Media Posts – Instagram, Facebook, Youtube, Snapchat

Blog Posts, Guest Posts

Podcast

Trying multiple niches at the same time

Selling multiple packages and presenting offers to your list all at once…

Now you’re losing sight of the big picture: actually running a profitable business – which once again can only be determined by the Net Profit Per Customer.

This framework of thinking will put you ahead in terms of your market because, yes, we know the importance of understanding all metrics but ultimately, we need to have a North Star from which we reverse engineer absolutely ALL of our marketing activities… and that is KEY.

More about Conversion Rate basics from Wordstream is on their awesome blog post here:

Why Conversion Rate is of Radical Value to build up the core of a stable, profitable business (however… not a wildly profitable business… we’ll talk more about that in the coming weeks.)

When building the logistics of a funnel from scratch, you’ll figure out that you need to:

Get a lot of attention from many potential buyers in your niche and pre-qualify them in a systematic way

Get their contact information – name + email or name + email + phone, depending on the model you’re using for client acquisition or follow-up

Run Email Campaigns

Run Retargeting Ads to bring them back to opt-in

Run Retargeting Ads to bring them back to the offer

From the very first step you will usually have the lowest conversion rate percentage. Based on specific industries it can vary from 1-5%.

Again, depending on the niche and target audience there, you will expect an opt-in conversion anywhere from 7-31%.

And right now, as of 2018, the ball game of email campaigns and retargeting ads has the absolute most amount of ROI we’ve ever seen in the marketing industry.

But there’s a secret here…

Do you know what happens after you’re running $5 Facebook ads and you feel like you’re getting “awesome” Cost Per Leads for your funnels and you’re like “Hey, maybe I’ll scale that”

Right?

And then remember what happens if you’re bumping up from $5 to $100-150 a day?

It’s “Hasta La Vista” to your awesome Cost Per Lead.

So… don’t be fooled into thinking that Conversion Rate is the backbone of your business once you begin scaling (again, most important = Net Profit Per Customer).

There’s a lot of churn happening after a specific number of customers and you’ll just hit a plateau if you don’t do a deep marketing audit of your funnel.

Obviously, cleaning up the onboarding process and automating as much value as possible into the service part is critical as well, but…

Most of the time getting to that next level is just segmenting your customer avatars and doubling down on the problem and solution of the niche. By using a pre-frame methodology, you can weed out all other people that will eventually churn and this will actually make your other clients STICKIER (even if true website conversion rate drop a little.)

So yes, taking care of your conversion rate on all your client acquisition funnels & landing pages will serve as the backbone to build up a stable, profitable business, however not a WILDLY profitable one.

The Conversion Rate Audit(AKA Checklist for a Sales Letter or any high conversion landing page)

One Offer

If you have one dialed-in offer that’s actually speaking with your target audience, then your conversion rate is going to be increased rather than having more than one offer.

One Video Pitch

Every offer you pitch to your audience needs to have one video with a call to action at the end that will guide them to the button on the sales letter.

One Video Pitch will make a huge difference to put yourself in a position of authority as a digital marketer.

One Niche

If you have one offer, you must understand as soon as possible that this specific offer is best for one and only ONE target audience.

However, this target audience can have variable segmentations of customer avatars.

One Price Point or One Specific Thing about the offer

Don’t overcomplicate the offer with too many types of payments, like weekly/monthly/annual. Keep it simple and more straightforward.

One CTA

On all your sales letters, have one core call-to-action and then 3-4 variations of that on different parts of your pitch.

Most important is below the video. Second most important is below the testimonials. Third most important call-to-action is below the features or benefits of the product or service.

Fourth most important call-to-action is below the “a bit about me” or the copy itself below the video.

Three Testimonials

Every sales page should at least have 3 testimonials to start off with. There are 2 variations you can deploy on your page:

Either text testimonials with your clients face included;

Or, a video testimonial.

A good testimonial template should include your client’s transformation (i.e. where they were in their life before the offer and where they are TODAY after the offer, including the core results they got.)

Include Social Media Proof

Social Proof can be included by showing how many followers and how big your audience is on all social platforms – IG, Facebook, Snapchat, Youtube, etc..

If you don’t have that much social proof, that’s okay – just share your links and make sure you’re posting valuable content on your channels.

Social Proof can also include viral posts you’ve done on social media or different influencer marketing partnerships you have had.

Guarantee

If you guarantee beyond the shadow of doubt on your offer you will get a higher conversion rate nowadays.

To do that there’s a few things you’ll need to secure in your guaranteed offer:

30 Day Refund Policy

Integrate Testimonials again on the guarantee pitch

Build credibility by sharing your background, experience, and more about yourself

Time Limit Offer

On your one offer there will be a time limit between 2 – 48 hours. On other types of launches you can see even 7 day limited offers. These are helpful to build the urgency within your offer.

Another way to add scarcity is by adding limited seats between 100-400 people and that’s it.

Offer Details

On the VSL you need to be completely clear on what the features are, the benefits, and how this is going to help your prospect achieve their transformation.

Including as many details as possible will help your prospect have an FAQ in front of them to understand the bits and pieces.

Also, don’t forget about the fact that within these details, you should start already debunking your prospects objections.

Offer One Bonus

Offering VIP bonuses and customized packages for your audience is an added value and a great unique selling point.

This will be emphasized in the offer details as well and at the end of the purchase part of the funnel so they can see as many bonuses as possible.

Bonus should include a price point as well so your prospect can understand the value behind that.

For example, for buying an online coaching program they will get a 73% discount on some of your software you’re using.

This way you can clearly show your prospect how much money they can save based on this bonus.

Offer Limited Discount

To add more urgency on top of a limited offer, a great combination is adding a discount of at least 25%-35% for your offer.

Show Pictures of your Team

The best thing to do here – is taking a picture of all team members together and then 4-5 individual portraits/selfies as well.

Pictures with clients on events are always welcome and more motivating for your prospects.

Completely Debunk all your client’s objections one by one using humor

The #1 thing that you as a marketer should do on your VSL or sales letters makes sure that on every pitch you debunk all the main objections your prospects will have.

It’s always the price, not a high priority, not interested, does not have time.

Make sure to debunk all of that in a funny, yet logical way.

Re-iterate Time Limit Offer

The time limit offer should be shown once again at the end of the sales page

Re-iterate Guarantee

The guarantee should be shown once again at the end of the sales page

Re-iterate Limited Discount

The massive discount should be shown once again at the end of the sales page

Re-iterate Testimonials

More testimonials should be shown once again at the end of the sales page

Do you have a Facebook Messenger chatbot integrated or a Chat tool?

Make sure to sneak in with a quick question from your in-app tool or chatbot so you can automatically start prospecting all your landing page visitors.

Do you offer multiple payment options?

Funny enough… not everyone wants to pay using just one payment option. Make sure you have universal payment options available.

Ad & Landing Page Consistency

Ask yourself how relevant the hook point in the headline of your ad is related with the hook on the Landing Page. What’s the promise on the ad and on the funnel itself? How fast and seamless is the delivery to your prospect? Also, how consistent is the creative from the ad to the landing page?

22. Test The Whole Funnel

From start to finish on your entire funnel, make sure the tech works correctly. After that, ask yourself: Would I buy this? How would you react as a lead on this funnel today? Leave the ego at the door.

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There’s cold traffic, warm traffic, hot traffic and customers – now you need to map out which one you’re going to deploy.

Audience Map

Based on the type of traffic, you’ll need to clearly define the bottleneck of the target market you have for your service/product. Then, build the before & after of your customer avatar.

Offer Map

Map the best message for that specific target audience again, all based on their pain point. The number 1 thing you need to do is solve that problem not only faster and better than anyone else in your market, but in the most unique way possible.

Opt-in Logic

Integrate a clear process on what info you need on the opt-in form and how that is going to be synced into your CRM so you can deploy automation.

Retargeting Logic

If there are no/minimal leads, retargeting ads will help reengage your prospects and increase your opt-in rate.

If there are a good amount of leads but they didn’t take action and buy your services/products, then use email retargeting, phone call campaigns, & more retargeting ads.

Funnel Analytics

This is where you need to stop on the execution, close the curtains, and become the math whiz. Yes, here is where you see gaps and the bits of pieces of your entire funnel and where you can convert better.

Once you have a fish on the line, start deploying micro-funnel split tests for conversion rate optimization by duplicating the same process over & over again.

P.S. We’re actually using our own tool ConversionFly to track everything live from A to Z as we’re obsessed with our key metrics and actually optimizing our conversion rates on every single little marketing revenue generating activity 🙂 and you know what?

About The Author

Helping entrepreneurs reach their full potential is one of my greatest passions.
Having owned multiple businesses myself, I believe "Simplicity Is Key, Never Despise Small Beginnings and Always Enjoy The Journey".